Guyana suffer mixed fortunes on opening night
IN cold conditions on Saturday night at the Niagara, on the Lake in White Oaks, Canada, Guyana had mixed fortunes on opening night of the 2022 Canadian Junior Open Squash tournament.
Guyana lost their first three matches 3-love before Nicholas Verwey, the son of the Guyana Squash Association (GCA) president Owen Verwey, got past Norman Yue 3-0 while Samuel Ince-Carvalhal, who turns 19 next month defeated Isaiah Richter 3-nil.
It was an inauspicious start for Mohryan Baksh, one of five Guyanese participating in the tournament.
Playing in his first match in the Boys U-17 division, Baksh lost 3-love in a game which lasted just 20 minutes; losing to Canadian Richard Wang.
Watched by a fair-sized gathering, Wang, urged on by his home fans, raced out to an 11-5 win in the first game before Baksh fought hard in the second stanza before going down 11-8.
Needing a win to take the match into a fourth game, the impressive Canadian showcased his talent with clinical shot-selection to beat Baksh 11-5 in just five minutes in what proved to be the final game of the match.
Up next for Guyana in the Girls U-19 Division was Kirsten Gomes, who opposed another Canadian, Raya Singh.
Singh won the match 11-4, 11-6, 11-7 as she romped to a convincing 3-nil victory over the Guyanese girl, much to the delight of her raucous home fans.
In Guyana’s third match of the night, Guyanese Joshua Verwey lost 11-8, 11-0, 11-3 to Norman Yue before his sibling, Nicholas Verwey, gave Guyana its first win when he got the better of Rawaad Mir 11-3, 11-6, 11-1, in a dominant performance of excellent squash.
Nicholas executed impeccable drop shots and demonstrated good use of the court to take the opening game before Mir offered token resistance in the second stanza, before the third and final game ended 11-I as Nicholas was all over his Canadian opponent.
In the final game of the opening night, Guyana’s Samuel Ince-Carvalhal defeated Canadian Isaiah Richter 11-7, 11-8, 11-4.
In a fairly competitive encounter, Samuel played several backhand drives and displayed a great level of fitness despite the cold conditions.
But Isaiah, backed by a vocal home crowd, fought hard and engaged the Guyanese in fairly long rallies in the first two games but wilted under pressure in the third game in which he only managed four points. (Sean Devers)
